Fictional Publications

Issue Number Six!

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 02:29:00 +0000

Index for Issue Six!

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:38:00 +0000

It's been a while since we've had a new issue around here. Readership has gone down as self-indulgence has risen. So what the heck! Let us self indulge just a bit.

There are two stories in this, the half dozenth issue. Both stories are about anxiety about the work place, in one way or another. There's a bit of playing with genres going on here, as well.

The story, Light, Dark is rather long. The second half is based on a dream that I had--an extremely long and complex one. The first half is based on my greatest irrational fear, being stuck in an elevator for 100 years with nothing to do.

The second story is based on a musical that I always wanted to write. It never worked out, surprise, surprise, but it lives on in comic form. Be sure to enlarge it by pressing the button in the bottom-left so you can read the damn thing.

Enjoy the show!

Light, Dark

A Productive Member of Society

A Productive Member of Society

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:32:00 +0000

You see, I started writing a musical in college all about society and conformity. Naturally, it was never finished. However, I have breathed new life into it by turning it into a comic! Sue gave me a Moleskine she wasn't using and I wrote it last weekend.

Now, I'm not an artist at all. This is why it's so fucking charming. Please click the show below to see the full story, 47 pages long. It's a flikr slide show, so feel free to adjust the pace until you can fully enjoy it. Enlarge it, for realz, to be able to read it. Awesomeness awaits.

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Light, Dark: Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:29:00 +0000

Dark.

There really was no way for Mark to know how long he had been there. The florescent lights never turned off, but stayed constantly glowing without so much as a flicker. Faces and voices drifted through his head. He tried to keep himself sane by remembering the faces of everyone he had ever met. He worked backwards in his mind, recalling what he had done that Monday when he should have taken the stairs, and tried to think of all the faces he had seen. When he got to someone especially memorable, he would try and remember every conversation he ever had with them. When he exhausted his memory of them, he moved backwards again.

After what seemed like years, but couldn’t have been since the phone never rang, he stopped trying to occupy his mind and started trying to keep it unoccupied. Remembering his whole life, it seemed, took less than a year. He tried not to think about anything. He couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard he tried, so he just kept his eyes shut and tried to think of darkness.

Even waking dreams didn’t come to him Hallucinations would have been welcome, but they didn’t come either. It was somewhere around this point, when he couldn’t imagine being there any longer, that he stopped believing in God. It made him feel nothing.

Finally, one day, the phone rang. He scrambled to pick it up.

“Hello?” Mark heard his own voice speak for the first time in almost a year. But there was no one on the other end, just a click and a dial tone, then the phone went dead.

He returned to sitting.

The next year, he summoned all of his anger, all the rage he could find in his hollow head, and when the phone rang, he folded his arms over his chest and looked the other way. The phone rang and rang for what must have been days and he still thought of hate and anger at this project and refused to answer.

When, at last, it stopped, he begged for it to return. Then he fell to tears.

His first actual conversation with the voice, at the end of his third year in the elevator, was anticlimactic.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

“Ah, Mr. Cliffton, we can’t answer that question.”

“I’d forgotten why I’m here. You didn’t give me a reason?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not allowed. That’s three. I’ll speak to you in one year, Mr. Cliffton. Please answer when I call.”

Mark hung up the phone without sadness or hope or any other detectible emotion. And then, he sat.

Mark didn’t keep track, but thirty-five phone calls took place before the room went black. At first, it was just a relief. It was so dark that nothing could be seen, not the outline of his hand in front of his face. It was exciting to him for what must have been days. Then, one day, he couldn’t remember if the lights ever had been on in the first place, or how long they might have been on.

A phone call didn’t come for what felt like a really long time after that. It had been long intervals each time before, but he had waited for what seemed like ten years without the phone ringing. Maybe the phone was broken like the lights. Maybe he had imagined that there was a phone in the first place.

But then he groped around in the dark, found the phone, and started hitting the receiver violently against the floor. The sound was strangely satisfying. In between hits, he heard something he had not heard in years: a voice.

“Hello?” the voice said. It was not the voice from earlier, but a more tired, and more distant voice. “Is someone there?”

“Yes, is this Churchill? Why haven’t you called?”

“My god,” the voice exclaimed. “You’re there, huh? And they didn’t tell you?”

“What?”

“They probably hoped to solve the problem before telling you. Funny. Now they’re all doing other jobs or they’re dead, depending.”

“What?”

“Funding was cut,” the voice said. “Man, I would hate to be you right now.”

“What are you talking about? Who is this?”

“I’m no scientist, I can tell you that. We’re salvaging what we can from these old facilities. They’ve been empty since I was a kid, but I read about the research they used to do. Are you in one of those cross dimensional pods?”

“Yes! That’s what it’s called! Can you get me out?”

“Are you kidding? They were so expensive to operate, the equipment for them was sold a long time ago. Just these phones and a couple monitors left. I’m taking them out before the demolition people come in.”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“Well, if we had a scientist here, maybe he could tell you. What a trip. An actual subject on the phone. You have no idea what you’ve done for us here. I used to read about you as a kid. I guess I just assumed you were dead. Too bad we can’t do anything for you.”

“That’s not fair,” Mark began to cry. He didn’t know where all that feeling came from. “It’s not fair! Let me out!”

“I’m sorry, man, really. I’m behind schedule already. You take care. Hang in there.”

“Tell someone about me!” Mark yelled, but there was nothing there. Nothing. He banged the phone and yelled into it for as long as it occupied him. But there was nothing.

Mark held his hands. He counted his fingers. He would hold out one hand and then touch it with the other, feeling every groove and every finger. Sometimes, he did nothing. He did nothing in a way that you and I can’t imagine. He did nothing in ways that he couldn’t even wrap his mind around.

Once, there was another shaking. Violent and quick, the whole world shook and ached with moans. His room dropped, he felt, then stopped again and stayed still again.

Water ran down the walls. He could feel it. He would press his hand against the walls and feel the small trickles of water fall down. Eventually, the water brought minerals and those minerals started building up on the walls, little by little. He would sit, patiently, and feel the walls turn into stone, little by little by little. Lost, lost, lost were the old walls. No longer an elevator receptical, he could tell, now something else. It occupied his every thought for longer than he had previously been there, until he didn’t remember what the metal walls had been like in the first place.

“How long?” he used to say to himself. He wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by it anymore. How long was he there? How long was he going to be there? How long did he have to live? He just kept saying it. “How long?”

And in the dark, some many years after his last memory, he heard a voice say, “Why?” It was a woman’s voice, soft and gentle.

He didn’t think anything of it, assuming that it was simply himself.

“Why?” it repeated.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I can’t remember.”

“A punishment, I think, wasn’t it?”

Now that he thought of it, he thought that he had been talking to her for years. Or maybe not. It was unremarkable.

“I did something wrong,” she said. “And they put me here. I wonder if they’d be upset if I got out.”

“Who?” Mark asked.

“I don’t remember. Whoever put me here. But I’ve been here so long, maybe they’re not around anymore. How long have you been here?”

“Many thousands of years, if that makes any sense to you.”

“But them, they’re not here, right? They’re gone now, aren’t they?”

“Does it matter?” he said.

“You’ve been here thousands of years?” she said.

“Forever, I suppose. Forever.”

“Forever,” it sounded soft and mournful in her voice. He liked it. And in liking it, it occurred to him: someone was there. He had been hearing her voice, he realized, for centuries without paying attention. Now, he could ignore her no longer.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She was silent, then started to answer with a syllable. “Um...” but stopped. “Do you think,” she said at last. “That I am individual and separate?”

“That’s what I’m wondering,” he said.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“There’s a hint of it somewhere. Shadows of some world where I was. Ghosts of ghosts. I was an individual.”

“That is so,” she stopped to search for the words. “Rich and exciting.” To her, the very notion of individuality and singularity, mixed with words like “shadow” and “ghost” painted a textured and layered experience firmly into her being. She was tingling and alive with the energy of it.

“Your voice,” Mark said, “is coming from a different place than mine.”

“Let’s meet!” she said excitedly. It was strange how quickly conversation came back to them. How clear and coherent their thoughts were and how solid their intentions.

The voices moved closer.

“Here I am!”

“I’m right here.”

“Come closer.”

“I’m coming.”

It was playful and they moved across the space of the room they were in, and how exciting the concept of space had become, how endless their small room felt in search of each other.

“Where’d you go?”

“I’m right here! You missed me!”

They tried again and again, their voices crossing over each other and into the other side.

“We can’t do it,” he said at last. “We’re not in the same place.”

“Or,” she said, “you’re just in my head.”

“Let’s not think like that,” he said. “Let’s talk. Let’s remember.”

Mark was easily lost in her words. He listened to her say anything, and she delighted in the talking. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was saying, but followed the rhythm of her own words and found energy in the way he reacted.

“Purple,” she said. “I like how that sound feels, ‘purple.’ It’s dark and deep and soft to the touch, I curl up in it and feel warm and welcomed.”

“That is so beautiful,” he said. “I think that’s what purple was. I think you’re right.”

And she would move on to another word, expound on its sound, expound on its character.

After talking a long time, the woman’s voice said, “I have to go to sleep. Don’t you want to sleep?”

Something came back to him. “I can’t,” he said. “I haven’t slept for as long as I can remember.”

“I can’t stay awake any longer,” she said. “Will you be here when I wake up?”

“Will you wake up?” he asked.

“I always do,” she said.

“I’m always here,” he said.

In the dark, he could hear her breathing. He would count her breaths until he couldn’t find a higher number, then he’d start over. Every night he imagined what she must be feeling during all that time. She anchored him, gave him a place to put his thoughts. He wondered if she slept when it was night and only then.

Often, they wouldn’t understand the memories that would come flowing back to the other one. He told her about the kolache he had brought with him the day that he came to wherever they were. She laughed. “What’s a kolache?” and he would describe and she would puzzle. “Is it like a pastie?” she asked. And then he was lost.

Ice was something that she remembered, being surrounded by it, lost in it. That’s where she was the day she came to their home, surrounded by white and ice. Someone was lost, she couldn’t remember who, then she was lost, calling names. Something sudden happened, she dropped, she lost her breath, she woke up here, a thousand years ago talking to herself, then talking to him.

“Do you ever wonder if I invented you?” she would ask. It makes sense, really. I needed company, so I made you.”

“No, that’s not right,” he would say. “You don’t know what kolaches are.” And of course, they both knew he was right then. The kolache was key.

There was a violent shaking again. Loud noises, many times louder than their voices rang through their room. At the end of it, a small sliver of light shone through into the room and had them both speechless.

They pressed themselves against the light and looked out. It took ages before they could open their eyes all the way. In the light, Mark could see that their room was stone, he couldn’t remember what it had been before, but he knew it had been different.

They could not see each other and for a long time, they both lost faith in each other’s existence. They would talk in short bursts, almost angrily, resenting the absence of the other. Mark drifted off into his own mind and wouldn’t answer her and stopped looking out at the light that he didn’t understand anyway.

But the light gave a length to the day. It would be light, then it would be dark, and as he suspected, the woman’s voice slept when it was dark. Still, he tried not to listen to her.

One morning, the light all red, the woman cried excitedly, “come quick, I have something to tell you, come quick if you are here!” and he hurried to the opening and looked out. All he could see was rock and green and blue. Like every day.

“No, not like every day,” she said. “Because, I happen to know that over that hill, there is a path and if you go down that path, there is a gathering. And people are singing and dancing and children are riding on animals, delighted to be free and alive. They will be there all day and if we gaze at the hill, we can imagine what they are doing.”

The story had a power to it and Mark lost his breath. He stood captivated, looking longingly at the hill, imagining the wonders beyond. And when the sun set, he cried that the gathering was over.

Many days later, he begged for the story again, and she told it. Then, the next day, he told her about the ocean over those hills, soft and blue and full of life. He talked about the people who would sit and gaze at it and take in the beauty of it. She cried for the words that he used and felt herself lost at sea.

They would play this game whenever their hearts would sink. And in quiet moments, they would relive the fantasies that they told each other.

They watched as the landscape changed. Grasses grew, then trees. Large animals with white fur and long necks came once and grazed on the grasses, but could not hear their calls. They were gone with the sun the next morning. Rocks grew out of the grass, mountains jutted up in the distance, the light grew dimmer and dimmer and the air got thicker and thicker.

One day, Mark couldn’t wait for the woman to wake up. He saw on the horizon something they had never seen before. Large machines were tearing out land, replacing it with something else and rolling from one horizon to the other. Eventually, other machines crawled along this space, quickly and quietly. On the first days, only a few, then many.

Something was erected by this roadway. Large and rectangular, the sign was purple. They both recognized the color at once and could not remember seeing something so vivid and wonderful. They talked about the function of the purple sign for months and years. And they watched it fall one day, long after the machines stopped coming and after the road had been covered in grass and trees.

But this purple never left her heart. And she wanted to leave. There had to be a way.

“I don’t like to leave you, Mark, but I must.”

“You can’t.”

“I can. I think I’ve found the way.”

“You can’t. It’s too large, it’s to big out there. You’d be lost.”

“You can’t talk me out of it,” she said, sadly. “I wish you’d just be happy for me.”

“I love you. Did you know that? I love you with everything that I am and everything that I ever was. I love you.”

“Oh, Mark,” she said. Her voice adopted a tone of pity.

“Don’t you love me?”

“It’s not like that, Mark. I think you missed something.”

Heartbroken, he wouldn’t listen to her plan. He was silent and brooded for years and years, patiently trying to heal from the wound that she inflicted. Then one day, she was almost gone.

“It’s simple,” she said. “Put the smallest part of yourself out through the hole. A hair, a nail, whatever will fit. Then, move yourself through it.”

He had no idea what she meant.

“It’s like dying. You die, just the part of you farthest from the hole, and you give birth to that part of you at the tip of that little hair. And you do it again and again. Endless births, endless deaths, your move through the space. I’m almost through. There are only weeks left, Mark, and I’ll be free.”

In a panic, Mark pressed himself against the hole. What she said made such beautiful sense to him. He pressed himself, slipped a hair through, felt a small part of him die and saw the hair grow so slightly longer. One cell, then another, one cell, then another. He knew that in many years, he would be his own reflection, pulling the last of his cells out of the hole and into the open.

“I’m out!” the woman’s voice screamed.

“Wait for me, please wait,” he cried. “You can’t leave me here!”

“I’m out!”

“You have to wait!”

“I’ll be back,” she said. “I’m going to look around, I’m going to find the purple, I’ll come right back.”

Mark let go of her in his mind. He knew she was gone. It was okay. A cell died. A cell was reborn. He moved forward.

More days and nights passed than he knew numbers for and the last of him emerged from the cave. He ran, or floated, or galloped, he wasn’t sure, to the trees off in the distance. He screamed for joy, and would have screamed the woman’s name, had he known it. He circled a tree and fell down, amazed that he could see it from every imaginable side. He felt his soul being pulled toward the tree, toward its beauty and its majesty and he felt like he was in the presence of God.

Whatever was left of him unified with the air, the trees, the colors, the sounds, the light. He became part of it all. He could feel himself growing with the trees, blowing in the air, falling in the rain. It was a type of pain that felt so good, being reunited with everything, he lost himself.

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Light, Dark: Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:28:00 +0000

Light.

Mark Cliffton’s greatest fears were realized on Monday when he became stuck in the elevator somewhere between floors three and four. He had long since decided that Mondays were Elevator Days; a small carrot to get him out of bed after a long weekend absent of work. Initially, the Monday/Elevator Day decision was made while he was a sophomore in college. His Cultural Anthropology class was Monday morning at 8 sharp—doors locked at five after—and on the third floor of the Harris building. By Junior year, Mondays doubled as Kolache Day (Kolache Day almost matriculated into Doughnut Day, but Friday held rights to first refusal and passed on it’s privilege to turn it down). The warm Czech treat kept him company from discussion of Australopithecus society the first year of it’s tenure, all the way through Monday Morning Get Fired-Up meetings at his first claim underwriting firm.

The elevator halted abruptly with the determination that only malfunctioning machines can truly capture. Mark, a mild claustrophobe (a quality that helped him to take the stairs four days a week and supposedly burn off the calories of both Koloche and Doughnut Days alike), resisted the initial urge to bang the button panel with an open palm and then a closed fist. He calmed himself with a series of deep, relaxing breaths. He reminded himself, much as his mother use to, that even if he weren’t in the small, confined space, he wouldn’t be taking up any more than was afforded him in while confined (these were kind words from a woman who once locked him in a closet until he could behave himself which just happened to coincide with his mother’s ability to remember to take a Xanax and the speed with which it calmed her nerves enough to remember what guilt feels like).

Mark reminded himself that he was an adult. A fully grown man totally dressed in a suit and tie; the very picture of maturity and self-control. He took a moment to let this wave of rationality consume him. He formed a plan.

Slightly, he bounced up and down. He was hoping to budge the elevator track mechanism back into the safety back-up locking system, making things back into place and resume his ascent. This didn’t happen, as the elevator track safety back-up locking mechanism was something of his own design that existed entirely within his own mind, no matter how clearly he could picture the little grabbing ball bearings and the well-greased holding joints on each of the four sides of the elevator.

A general pressing of buttons followed. No result.

Luckily, Mark had been a long time fan of television.

A thoughtful pause.

A briefcase balanced, used as a stepping stool.

Yet even from his elevation near the top of the elevator car, Mark could find no secret panel to the roof of the car. So much for his imagined escape—slipping onto the top of the elevator, seeing the open door above, complete with the outstretched hands of several firemen. The buxom brunette, Sara Fuller, from the cubical down the hall, her mascara running down tears of joy and celebration at seeing Mark arriving on the top floor safely; her whispered invitation to dinner, a slight brushing of her hand against his cheek. Bravely, in his mind, Mark accepted the invitation and would one-up the touch that night.

Instead, a slipping briefcase found him on the ground, dreams of Buxom Sara’s touches slightly bruised.

He searched the compartment again. He looked for a hidden camera. He decided that, in all probability, there was a hidden camera, but that it was hidden beyond his ability to find. The frustrated voice of his father came back to him from that one Easter when even a game of “hot and cold” couldn’t lead him to the last colored egg, “You couldn’t find it if it hatched a bald eagle holding a snake in its mouth!” While his father’s theory was forced to remain theoretical, he had a valid point that still held true.

In case of a well hidden and monitored camera, he waved his arms and acted like he was screaming, fully aware that a hidden camera did not include a hidden microphone, in almost all situations.

Panic was the next logical step.

Mark inhaled a deep breath and tensed up his muscles, like a spring coiled for action.

The elevator, a fifteen year old ThyssenKrupp, had never seen such screaming and pounding in all of its years of service.

Effectively, Mark tired himself out. He hadn’t been stuck a full fifteen minutes yet and already he was defeated. He was a sitting, sweating, disheveled pile of a man in a business suit sobbing in the corner of the elevator. The tears came easily and he loosed his tie, resigning himself to a sick day, even if he should make it out of the lift alive.

In the middle of his baby fit, the answer to his plight shined down on him, though it had been there all along.

Waiting. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He’d just wait until he got out. That was it! All he had to do was be a big boy and wait, just like he was in the Monday-morning-get-fired-up meeting, minding his own business until he was free to do what he liked. This was it, his final theory on his plight that would surely serve him until the end.

It was a good five minutes after he settled himself that something happened. It started as a mild shaking, and progressed in spurts into an all-out rumble, climaxing in a violent shaking and perhaps even spinning sensation. Somewhere in the middle of the commotion, Mark abandoned his waiting and went back to screaming. Then, when the shaking stopped, he stopped screaming and went back to the plan of crying. At no point during this transition was any true progress made and finally he gave up even on the crying.

Mark had no idea how long he sat there. An hour or two in the silence, maybe more. He was so shocked and so fully lost that he didn’t even notice until then that he had half of a kolache left. He decided that the best bet was to wait and not eat it, just in case he was in there for a while. He sat and looked at it, the jalapeno sausage covered in melted cheese peeking out of the baked bun. Then, swiftly and decisively, he ate it.

Nothing happened then for another indeterminable amount of time. Then, suddenly, a phone rang.

Salvation! Why hadn’t he seen it before? A big red phone with a blinking red light on top singing its head off. Crawling on the ground, he scrambled to pick up the receiver before the third ring.

“Hello? I’m stuck in here!” he called, more desperately than he had hoped.

“Yes, Mr. Cliffton?” the voice was distant sounding and slightly British.

“Yes, yes, can you get me out? Was there an earthquake?”

“Mr. Cliffton, you may as well stay calm.”

“I’m calm, goddamn it, I’m really calm. Can you get me out?”

“No, we won’t be doing that.”

Mark was shocked and nearly lost his head at this comment. “Don’t joke around, man, don’t do it. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Cliffton, that your elevator car, as you call it, has shifted somewhat.”

For a split second, Mark wondered what this mildly British man might call an elevator car. But without his vocalizing it, the answer came over the phone. “We call it a cross dimensional observation receptacle. You see, we lured you into it this morning and have collected you. We shifted it slightly out of your own dimensional reality. Even if those doors were to open, you’d have no idea how to slip back into your world. In fact, in a manner of speaking, those are not doors anymore.”

When someone in a cartoon or comic has an epiphany or a very blessed idea of any sort, they are seen to have a light bulb appear over their heads. In this case, however, whatever it is that is the opposite of a light bulb turning on—a candle being snuffed out or a foggy patch of darkness, perhaps—would be what one would animate over Mark Cliffton’s head at this moment.

“We have a startling proposition for you. I hope you’re paying very close attention, Mr. Cliffton. Are you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Prove it.”

“What? How in the world would I prove it? Of course I’m paying attention, what the hell else would I be doing talking on the phone to you while stuck in a goddamn elevator?” Mark’s voice rose in a crescendo to very near madness.

The voice came back calm, as if a mother were talking to a child. “I want to make sure you’re thinking clearly before I offer you this proposition. Are you listening without passion, but with absolute rationality?”

“Yes, goddamn it, yes!”

“Okay then, Mr. Cliffton, what is the sum of 24 and 32?”

“What? What in the name of God are you—”

“24 and 32, Mr. Cliffton, what are they put together?” the voice was stern, now.

“Umm, ah, 56?”

“Ahh, very good, Mr. Cliffton, very good.” The voice was so pleased and Mark felt good about that.

“Okay, 56, great, now please tell me—”

“And the sum of 56 and twice 56?”

“What the hell for?”

“Mr. Cliffton,” again the strictness had returned to the voice. “I must be certain you are listening carefully and rationally. Now, it is my understanding that you are an accountant. What is the sum of 56 and twice that of itself?”

“168.”

“Divide that by 9.”

This line of questioning went on quite literally, for the better part of a day. One equation after another until, quite suddenly and miraculously, the voice said, “Oh, good, Mr. Cliffton! Jolly good!” In the background, Mark heard many more voices cheering and many hands clapping.

“Now just what the hell are they so thrilled about?”

“You’ve proven, against the standard 73 test parameters required be best practices, that you are, indeed, listening. What a breakthrough! We’ve established communication!”

Mark was, understandably, outraged. “We established communication like 10 hours ago! Now get me the hell out of here!”

“As I said before, we won’t be doing that.” A few light chuckles could be heard in the background. “That would defeat the whole purpose of establishing communication.”

“Just what in the hell is going on here?” Mark returned to his tantrum jumping, then he started kicking the wall.

“Mark? Are you still there? Do we need to establish rational communication again?”

“Oh, Christ no, Churchill, please no!”

“Then let me explain what I can to you. For reasons of research, I cannot explain everything. Listen closely and do not interrupt.” The voice paused. “We are studying you.”

Mark waited for further elaboration, silently. He waited and waited, but could hear nothing other than the breathing of the man—or whatever he was—on the other end. “And?’ Mark finally said.

“Oh, that’s all, Mr. Cliffton. We can’t tell you any more. Wouldn’t want to sully the research parameters, now would we?” The voice, it appeared, was very funny to his dimensional cohorts. Oh, how they chuckled.

“What the fuck?”

“Oh, the proposition, yes, Mr. Cliffton. I almost forgot. That is our first order of business, so I do want you to listen as carefully as you possibly can. Listen intently, in fact, so intently that you may realize that you’ve never truly listened to anything before. Are you listening that intently, Mr. Cliffton?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is seven times—“

“Oh for the love of God! Please no more math! I’m listening, I swear it, I’m listening.”

“I suppose we can do away with a touch of decorum, since you’re being so pleasant, Mr. Cliffton. You have a choice, Mr. Cliffton. We cannot study someone unless he does so willingly. We must determine that you would like to be studied. So here, Mr. Cliffton, is your proposition:

“Mr. Cliffton, you must choose. Would you like to be studied, in which case you would remain in this elevator, exactly as you are without the need of food, water, or any other such distractions, for one hundred of your human years, at which time we will let you go back to your life as if not a moment has passed? Or, would you rather we euthanized you now?”

Without hesitation, Mark said, “Oh my God, kill me. The sooner the better. I hate this shit, I want out or I want dead.”

“What?” The voice was genuinely taken aback. “Hold on a minute, Mr. Cliffton.” Mark seemed to have surprised the British right out of the voice.

He heard quiet discussion on the other end of the phone for some minutes. Finally, the voice returned, “We didn’t expect that, Mr. Cliffton. I’m afraid you’ll have to choose the 100 years.”

“Fuck!” Mark yelled at the top of his lungs.

“I’ll take that as a yes! Congratulations, Mr. Cliffton, you’ve chosen wisely. For the next 100 years you will further our understanding of you through many secret means that you can’t know about. You will be living here, in this deluxe cross dimensional observation receptacle. You will have no contact with anyone and no need of any bodily necessities.

“Once, every year, we will call you on this phone. When we do, you may ask us three questions. Make them interesting ones, ones that we can talk about for some time, since it will be your entertainment for the year.”

“Once a year? Are you insane?”

“No. And that counts as a question for your next phone call, one year from now. If you’re through interrupting, I will continue.

“None of the pens in your briefcase will work, so don’t bother writing anything. If you have anything to read in there, don’t bother; you’ve already forgotten how. Paper airplanes won’t work in this subdimension of yours and, in fact, any manner of folding is out of the question. Any form of entertainment, you will find, impossible.

“But there is a bright side! At the end of 100 years, our study will come to a close and you will leave here and go on to your Monday at work. We’ll even restore your kolache to the condition it was in when you entered the elevator.”

“Fuck-a-doodle-doo.” Mark was slumped over in a corner, barely holding the phone to his ear.

“And one more thing, Mr. Cliffton, and I’m afraid it’s rather embarrassing. No masturbation of any kind will be tolerated during your stay. It’s far too interesting for our purposes to pleasure yourself and, frankly, it sickens us a great deal. For every instance of autoeroticism, we will tack on another thousand years. Am I clear about that?”

“I’m not thinking about getting off, ass. I’m going to kill myself, Churchill, I really will. The moment you hang up.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find that quite impossible. And for your stubbornness, that counts as questions two and three for your call next year. When the phone rings, you may as well not even pick it up because all you’ll hear is my breathing; I won’t be allowed to talk to someone who has used his questions up.”

“Oh my God, fuck you, dude.”

The voice was beyond perturbed. “Mr. Cliffton! How dare you. I’ll remind you that you chose to participate by your own free will. Now, I will talk to you in two years. Goodbye.”

The phone went blank and Mark dropped it on the ground. It hit the bottom of the elevator with a dull thud. From this moment further, Mark sat. Everything in his life changed in every way he could imagine.

*******

GO TO PART 2!

#8: Rearview

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:29:00 +0000

Summer had come and gone that year, shorter than usual. Before long, it was time to go. It wasn't until the harbor was almost out of sight that he noticed all that he had given up. It would be three years before he came back. At least that's what he thought.

He already stood, watching the harbor shrink and roll over the world, composing a letter to her in his mind.The air, the smells, the sounds. One of the few aboard that wouldn't be undergoing backbreaking toil over these years, he had his own quarters and as much ink and paper as he could use. Volumes, he swore to her, he would write and send volumes aboard every homeward bound ship they came across. And the three years would feel like nothing.

But he didn't come back. Someone else in his skin, did. Solemn, tempered, and distant. He had given up much more than he thought he had that day. And it was as if that passing summer ha just fallen off the branch for her.

She didn't recognize him in his rags disembarking the ship. He walked past, coming close enough to smell her. And she still didn't see him. It was evident, then, that he wasn't the same. He kept walking.

Issue Six Index

#7: Deus ex Machina

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:13:00 +0000

"Well, I think it's lame. Why does the woodcutter come out of nowhere to cut open the wolf? And what kind of wolf eats a kid and her grandma whole?" said Mother.

"Sorry, I just threw that in. The girls were too bothered by the ending," Father replied, dipping a scone into his coffee. "They were overjoyed that Red lived."

"Why didn't you just change the ending? Like have the grandmother hide in the closet and then have Red trick the wolf into jumping into the fireplace or something?"

Father thought about this. As much as he tossed and turned it over and over in his mind that night, he couldn't imagine a grandmother with the wherewithal to hide when the wolf knocks on the door nor a little girl who could trick a predator like that so devilishly. No, the only way was to have a man enter the scene and take care of things. That was the only way for a happy ending.

"I've given it thought," Father said, tightening his tie the next morning. "And you're right. I think it's not fair to have the woodsman show up like that, out of the blue."

"Thank you, I think it would do good to not have them eaten at all, don't you, dear?"

"Not at all; they must be eaten. I've decided not to soften the story. They'll simply be torn to smithereens."

Mother stood agape. "Dear, how in the world do you expect them to sleep at night with a story like that?"

"Away from wolves, honey. That's the point. They'll have to learn it some way."

Issue Six Index

#6: The Yard

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:09:00 +0000

"It's quiet out here."

"It would be if you'd shut up."

"No, I mean like, no crickets or cars passing by or anything."

"Shhh."

Ryan somehow knew that it was better to stay quiet walking through Live Oak Resthaven. The concrete and stone slabs around us stood stoic, quiet, and alert. I couldn't help the feeling that talking or whistling would break the spell they had over the place. I followed, though, in quiet, as he was the leader.

Finally we stopped at a grave; a sculpture of a woman grasping a headstone, mourning her lost love.

"Here she is," he whispered. "I stayed the night here one year ago tonight. It's your turn."

"You're staying too, right?" I blurted loudly.

"Shh! Of course not. You think I'm going through it all again?"

"All what, for God's sake? What happened?"

He never did tell me what it was that happened that night. We had joked about it before hand, put money in a pot, and I swore that if he did it, I would go a year later--the second date carved into the rock. But when he came back, he didn't joke, he didn't laugh when we asked him how it was. His relationship with Sara fell apart quietly, and he didn't seem to mind working later hours at the record store.

"We can talk about it in the morning. God knows I've waited too long to talk about it. I can't wait."

He turned and I wasn't able to see him for more than fifteen second until he was swallowed by the darkness. I was afraid I would be swallowed next.

Issue Six Index

#5: Rotary

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 03:32:00 +0000

It wasn't the first night I spent in the new place, but maybe the third or fourth.

The old rotary phone that was in the closet when I moved in still worked, I found out. I plugged it in next to the bed and played with the wheel, pulling it to 9, letting go. To 8, letting go. To 7. Sitting on my bed, looking around the room, moving the rotary.

It rang, bright and jarring, just past one in the morning. I answered it, mentally surveying the list of people who knew the number already.

"Mark?" The voice wasn't familiar.

"No. Eddie. You must have the wrong number."

"Oh my god, sorry!" she said, hanging up.

Then again, the phone bells range. "Hi, Mark?"

"Still Eddie," I said.

"Oh shit."

The third time I answered, "Mark here." And she laughed.

Mark was her brother, new to the area like I was and gave her the wrong number. She knew he'd be up because he got off work that late. We talked about the city and the coast. I looked out the window at the clouds moving across the moon when she told me about her husband, how he left with their accounts in tow two years before. When I told her about my work, the job I was worried wouldn't make it through the turmoil that I had just take. Holding the heavy old receiver in my hand, I listened to her crying as the sun was stretching up over the hills, stars receding.

She apologized for not fixing her hair at breakfast, sorry she looked like she was up all night.

Issue Six Index

#4: Morning in Haiku

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:34:00 +0000

When at last the sun
rose, we couldn't remember
being so scared.

But the whole night, through
the wind and the cold and what
sounded like animals

sniffing at the sides
of the tent, we slept little
if we slept at all.

Underneath us, spread
out for miles, a canyon of
red rocks that wasn't

visible when we
pitched our tent last night was just
being touch by the sun.

We built a fire
with little fuss. We ate. Then
it was time to go.

Issue Six Index

#3: The Poet

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:50:00 +0000

"I'm always surprised to see where they go." He slurred his words, tongue too slippery with wine. "When I sit down to write them, they are wondering and lost. I bring them in, my children, and make poems out of them."

Mari was finding it harder and harder to enjoy this man whose words she had devoured so selfishly for years before. Glasser had written a slender book of poetry, Slave Heart, that had been like a bible for her and her friends in college.

"It's like God has made me a god for them. Proud, and petulant, you know." His eyes half-closed, his cigarette dangling dangerously between the tips of his fingers.

"But you know this, my child. You know or you wouldn't have come so far to see me, for us to meet this way." He nodded at Mari, almost falling out of his seat. Those surrounding them at the big table in the middle of the bar laughed and cackled at the performance they knew this man to deliver every night he came out.

It took the heater a while to warm up in the car as she drove home. "I am sorry, Mari, but I warned you he'd be this way. He always is," Cera said. "In some ways, I wish I had never taken this position, you know. It breaks my heart to see him this way. I mean, Rick Glasser, you know? The only poet I ever loved, a pathetic self-obsessed drunk. This is the worst internship I can imagine. Tomorrow morning he'll pile grant work on me and pretend this night never happened."

But Mari didn't know what she was talking about. She was hardly listening to her friend. She had seen a depth of pain and sorrow in the man who had written that tome of heartache. She was moved by the way the world inflicted him all over again.

Issue Six Index

#2: Angel

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 05:39:00 +0000

The dirt made a dusty cloud around the girl who slid into the base. Before it was fully clear, she noticed that her foot didn't quite touch the bag, so Marla dropped the ball clumsily onto the ground.

She didn't mind that her coach gave her shit about it during the stretch. She had known the girl--what was her name?-- back in elementary school, back when she came to class one day after being out for two weeks wearing a halo to keep her neck straight. Marla sat behind her and watched the ways the pins went into the skin on her shaved head.

Brianna, that was it. Brianna Philips.

And it was pitch dark at Camp Vale, the girl scout camp two years later, when Brianna whispered in the dark about why she had worn the halo, how she had broken her neck. And when word of it got around, Marla wasn't at all surprised to hear that her father had found work in another town, that Brianna had to move, that no one had her number.

It didn't make the winning run. It would be hard to say if it affected the outcome of the game or of playoffs or of anyone's chance for a softball scholarship. But she was glad. Marla was glad she dropped the ball. Even if she didn't say hi after the game. Even if they pretended not to know each other. Even if it was he smallest measure of pity she could imagine after all these years.

Issue Six Index

Issue Number Six Index

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Another issue of micro-fictions! And more!

1. Roadside
2. Angel
3. The Poet
4. Morning in Haiku
5. Rotary
6. The Yard
7. Deus ex Machina
8. Rearview

#1: Roadside

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 05:03:00 +0000

Steinbeck Bend Road curved in front of me, sharp and sudden. To my right, a white fence held in a green stretch of shallow hills where horses grazed. Coming up to the light, before turning towards China Springs, a congress of three small crosses stood by the road. They'd been there for as long as I was driving this road, at least five or six months.

But today they had a visitor.

A woman stood next to them and bent down to lay something on the ground in front of the middle cross. The cross stood white against the green grass, reaching up and out, stoic. She stood up and looked again at the three memorials before her.

My light turned green; the truck in front me began to roll forward into the intersection. The woman fell back down to her knees, her hands covering her face.

From the rear view mirror, I couldn't tell if it was her son, daughter, husband, friend, or lover who had died on the road, in the middle of the night, five or six months before.

Issue Six Index

Publication!

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:19:00 +0000

My first book is available for purchase today!

I wrote a short-story version of "The Traveler" almost 10 years ago while I was in college. I always wanted to revisit the story--something about those characters really captured my attention. I finally sat down to write the novel version two years ago and I managed to finish a first draft in just over a week.

You can now buy my book in ebook format. It is for sale as an ebook, published by Jupiter Gardens Press. If it makes a good showing in that format (300 copies), then it goes to print. That's right: you can buy the book twice!

It's cheap, five bucks, and it would help my dreams come true to have you buy a copy and write a review of it today.

Thanks!

Issue Number Five

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:53:00 +0000

#30: Awake

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:59:00 +0000

"Are you awake?"

The soft voice could have come from my own head; in the dark I couldn't tell.

I rolled over.

And it came rushing back to me. All of it. The way I almost drown when I was five, just a month before getting Castle Grayskull for Christmas; the time I made a pinch-pot in the fourth grade, sitting next to the blond girl who I had a crush on; running away from security guards with my brother and our friends, laughing; the Grand Canyon; a car accident I saw in New Mexico, the people I watched die; moving to a new city by myself, learning without studying; Vermont, green and with snow; Erik and how he left the world; the time I died when I was 26, reborn in the same place during the same instant, looking down on a smaller version of me; doing it again a year later, but seeing clearly how this one was so much more than I could ever be.

I reached out to hold her hand in the dark.

I wanted to tell her that 30 years ago, I jumped into the abyss and was still falling. I'm staring down to the bottom of Grand Canyon now, feeling smaller and less important, but less lost.

When I stop falling, I know she'll be there to see me off.

"I'm awake," I say.

Micro-Fiction Index

#29: Stillborn

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:30:00 +0000

"We've been staring long enough."

But it wasn't long enough, no matter what I tell myself. "There were over 50,000 books published last year," I think. "But I can walk into a bookstore and pick one out in about five minutes. This," I say pointing, "is a lot bigger deal."

It feels like I'm getting through this time. It feels like I understand. But still, I have to just pick one.

Mine was a boy, so that part was obvious enough. The hair made it little easier--fine baby hair like all of theirs. They didn't weigh it, or didn't tell me the weight, or I don't remember, so that doesn't really factor in.

"Just take one, just take that one, now!"

I reach down and look at him. His hand reaches out and grabs my fingers. At 38 weeks, I was having dreams about my baby's hand reaching out--my stretched skin like a thin membrane--and holding my hand. A week later, he was gone.

"That's him!" I hear myself saying. "He picked you over them."

I trip the fire alarm. I move.

Micro-Fiction Index

#28: Stove on the Face

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:04:00 +0000

Charlie and Claire had fought earlier that day. They made up and went out for dinner.

They were wandering around Seaport Village, a touristy collection of ocean-themed shops when they came across a loud guy with a collection plate bragging about his balancing prowess. He was going to balance: 1) a Coke bottle on a stick at the end of his nose; 2) a little girl in a chair on top of his head; and for a finale, 3) a stove on his face.

Claire clapped when he balanced the Coke bottle, laughed when he drank it empty. She held her breath when he balanced the little girl, who took a little bow at the end of her part. And Claire held her two hands together with her fingers wrapped tight against her heart, mouth agape, eyes stunningly wide, while the large bald Eastern-European guy balanced the stove on his face.

Claire hopped up and down wildly, a smile stretching her skin to the limits of its elasticity when he took the stove down and bowed.

Charlie didn't feel threatened. It's just that she showed a level of enthusiasm and happiness in her composure that she had never come close to displaying when watching him do anything. No matter how hard he tried, Charlie would never think that he captured her imagination and held her heart again, he just knew.

He looked out across the bay at the Coronado Bridge and imagined what it would feel like, those rich moments of free-fall, breaking the surface-tension of the choppy water.

Micro-Fiction Index

#27: Rita

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:18:00 +0000

He wasn't even outside the tollway before he realized what a bad idea this evacuation was. Two days later, having traveled less than a hundred miles, he knew that he should have turned back during those early moments.

There was no where to stay but a crowded gymnasium. The cast-off cafeteria food, the information sheets being handed around, and the smell of a thousand displaced Houstonians sleeping in the same huge room made him wish the hurricane would wipe out his little apartment so he could just move on.

But he called her anyway.

She left with her new boyfriend. They'd headed north to Huntsville where he kept a small lake house. When she answered he could hear the ambient sound of people enjoying themselves. In the middle of their conversation, she turned her face away from the phone to request that her steak was cooked "medium."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I have to go. I'm making the potato salad and I need two hands. I really don't want you to be upset, if that's any consolation."

"It's not. That steak would be consolation."

She laughed.

"I just need a fresh start, I guess," he muttered into an empty phone.

And by the time the hurricane had passed, and news had reached him that the damage was minimal, he was too tired to think of turning around and heading back down 290 again. But not even Rita was going to hand him a fresh start.

Micro-Fiction Index

#26: Her Place

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:31:00 +0000

"God, I never bring people here."

By comparison, my apartment and any of my friends' houses were sparse if not empty.

Her house was small, full of windows, creaky hardwood floors, floor lamps, and shelves on every wall in the first two rooms. They were filled with books in one room, and vinyl records in another. She had a turntable that looked brand new with a large stereo system.

"I'll just be a second," she said, slipping down the hall.

It was a singular experience to see the records, arranged alphabetically, in the cubby-shelves. I looked under "S" and found Spiritualized and put on Pure Phase. The slippery strings rang around the room in the opening track. I picked up a picture from the table next to me; it was her, younger, with her father, the photo yellowed with that 70s wash.

"You live with your parents?" I called out to her room, picking up other pictures. There wasn't one that I could find of her over 15, not one that was of anyone besides her and her parents.

"No. Well, no."

I paced the room, looking at the records, looking at the pictures.

A desk, covered in pictures and dust stood out, made an impression, and I felt a void standing there.

I stood, looking at the desk. She came over.

"When did they die?" I asked.

"When I was 17."

I saw in her eyes the distance of stars. I felt her heart beating in her fingertips.

Micro-Fiction Index

#25: The Appointment

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:25:00 +0000

She'll be here, she'll be here, I keep telling myself.

I sit on a couch, drinking some kind of latte-of-the-day. I'm reading Kerouac, hoping that will give just the right impression. Saturday nights are filled to the brim here, but I have perhaps the only empty seat next to me, reserved by my over-stuffed backpack.

She'll be here, she'll be here.

She finally walks in. She changed her hair a little, which seems to be something she does every week, and now it's more red. She wraps a black apron on and slips behind the counter saying, "Sorry" to the manager who's face would be more comfortable tapping a watch.

I read and I wait.

I listen to the conversations around me. Someone's failing math. Someone's breaking up with her boyfriend, but he won't find out for another couple weeks. Someone's planning a road trip, an escape from this town, maybe never coming back.

She pulls shots, mixes drinks, smiles. Repeats.

Three and a half hours and the place is still packed. It's loud, even with the carpets and soft furniture. Even with the people in the next room concentrating on chess, it's loud.

Finally, I see her making a drink for herself, her apron still tied around her but taken off her shoulders. She has fifteen minutes.

She steps from behind the counter, looks around at the full coffee house.

I move my backpack. I motion to the now empty seat and smile.

Micro-Fiction Index

#24: Back

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:50:00 +0000

The road hummed beneath them.

"I just think we should have gone back."

"There wasn't a way to go back! You saw as well as I did. We looked for too long."

"It's a mistake."

"It's not a mistake when it's the only choice you can make, is it? There's not a 'back' anymore to go to. You saw that."

"There's always a way. If we didn't find it, it doesn't mean it wasn't there. We didn't look hard enough. We didn't see it, it was too hard, and we gave up."

"You want to go back now?"

"No."

"We can try. We can look and fucking look again, and I can tell you that we won't find it. But I'll waste the rest of my life on it if I have to."

"Just forget it. Just," she paused. "Let's try to remember it, okay? Let's try to remember all that we had seen there."

"It's not like we could forget."

The road hummed beneath them.

Micro-Fiction Index

#23: Bone Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:08:00 +0000

Things were unnerving with all the ghosts around. In the living room, when the sun was just right coming through the parted windows, you could see two people playing cards at a table that wasn't there. In the den, there were no less than three people reading books at one time.

We knew the cause was father's bone collection in the basement. He had my brother and me follow him to the old cemetery in the hills and gather the bones at night. The rains and soil on the hill had kept them in "wonderful condition," he told us.

I wondered if the graves crawled with these spirits before we took the bones, or if the movement disturbed their memories, or if it was all in my head, as my mother had suggested that we were collectively going crazy.

I tried to speak with them, tried to hold conversations. Only once did a man look at me, confused, as if he were staring at an apparition.

Father categorized them below us. The different bones, the different bodies, all in a taxidermical strata of organization. He showed us breaks, healed bones, diseases of the heart that had affected the marrow.

In the years that followed, long after the ghosts left our home, I wondered what attentions my bones would have, framed in cases or filtered into stone. Or would the the wind just whip the grasses above them, carrying pollen through gentle breezes?

Micro-Fiction Index

#22: The Shoemaker

noreply@blogger.com (Sol Smith) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:16:00 +0000

Really, Gus didn't mind sleeping with the dogs. They were, for the most part, courteous, and, essentially, just as clean as anyone else in the household.

The oldest dog, Brik, was really the only one that seemed to care for him. His hair was matted in some places and falling off in others, brown, gray, dingy. If the man hit the boy, Brik would growl until he was hit, as well. The man supposed that the only reason Brik didn't scurry away with the other dogs was because he was so old.

On this night, Gus was lying in the kitchen, his head on a pile of straw that he had taken from the outside. Brik was next to him, huffing out hot air. Gus liked sleeping in the kitchen because the opening in the roof above the stove let him see the stars. The shoemaker had been there that day, traveling from the woods. He spent all day in the village. Near the bedroom was a row of new shoes for a few of the other children and the man's repaired shoes. Gus could smell the leather.

"Brik," the boy said. "The shoemaker showed me where he walked from." His voice was a whisper. "I think he meant us to follow."

When the snores were deep from the bedroom, Gus stood and walked, slowly, to a new pair of shoes and picked it up.

Brik didn't follow him out the door.

Micro-Fiction Index